


photo album

by spacebutterfly



Category: Junjou Romantica
Genre: Gen, Shinobu is mentioned but not actually present sorry kiddo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-18
Updated: 2016-12-18
Packaged: 2018-09-09 15:39:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,988
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8897560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacebutterfly/pseuds/spacebutterfly
Summary: It's one thing being forced to look at someone's baby photos, and another when those photos happen to be of your boyfriend. It's something else entirely when the father showing you the photos has no idea of that prior fact at all.





	

**Author's Note:**

> It's Shinobu's birthday! (December 18th) but I have nothing prepared for it so I'm uploading this old WIP that I tidied up in which he doesn't actually physically appear. Yup, happy birthday...

It was strange being in this house again. Probably stranger than it ought to have been.

“Take a seat, take a seat,” the dean insisted, nodding towards the door to the sitting room. “I should only be a moment. To think that I forgot to bring the documents that we need to hold the conference in the first place...”

“It’s not a problem,” insisted Miyagi, hovering by the door. “We all forget things sometimes- would you like me to help look for...?”

“No, goodness me, no...my study would make even _your_ office look tidy...the documents should be right where I left them. You just sit tight for a second.”

“Yes, sir...” Miyagi, unsure whether to take his boss’ comment on his office as a slight or not, entered the sitting room but did not sit.

It always felt too big, too empty, even though it was of an average size - it was smaller than Miyagi’s sitting room, even, but then, his apartment _was_ open plan. It wasn’t really about the physical size, though, more that the house was so quiet, unlived in - it was now too big for a married couple who were both always at work, their children having already moved out. Risako still dropped by to stay at times, as far as Miyagi could gather, but without her little brother here to argue with her it must have been much, much quieter.

The display on the mantlepiece is an attempt to assure visitors this is still a family home - a family photograph stands in the centre, each member standing a little too straight, with smiles a little too forced - apart from Shinobu, of course, looking as blithe and uncaring as ever. Then, on either side, two singular framed photos - one of a high-school aged Risako (back when they were married, Miyagi had always annoyed her no end by telling her how she used to look like a member of some kind of girl gang - only a slight exaggeration), and the other of a middle-school aged Shinobu. It was remarkable how much he had changed, and also how much he hadn’t – not that he didn't still have a baby face, but the Shinobu in the photo seemed so much younger now.

Well, so he would. Because that photo has been stood on the mantlepiece for years - they all have. Funny how they never got a new one of him. Maybe what with all the to-and-froming between Japan and Australia the time had just slipped away. Or maybe Shinobu had simply refused. That was very possible.

“Miyagi?”

Miyagi looked up to see his boss enter the room. “Oh, sir. You’ve found them?” he asked, just before noticing the envelope in his hand. He was carrying something else as well, however - some sort of book?

“Yes, well, we’ve, er...we’ve got a little time before we set off again, haven’t we? There’s this- me and my wife were looking at it the other day- I just found it again- maybe you’d like to...?” With a strange, expectant sort of expression, the dean pushed the book into Miyagi’s hands. In an instant it was clear it wasn’t just a book, but some kind of binder...an album, even. The front had the family name scrawled on it.

“This...this is...?” Miyagi smiled awkwardly, for any lack of better reply - he may have spent three years as a member of this family, but he wasn’t now, and there was something jarring about being handed this special thing, being treated with such sudden familiarity. The dean did not seem to sense this, or if he did, he obviously did not care.

“Sit, sit. Sit down and take a look. It’s just been sitting on my desk and, well...since you’re here...I thought you might find it interesting. You know those two are no longer at the age where they want to sit still and have a picture taken, they haven’t been for years...and this...this album ended up buried amongst all my other things, so I...” The dean shook his head, clearly aware he was losing his thread. “Well, let’s just sit down.”

“Yes...sir,” Miyagi murmured, taking a seat at the sofa. The dean joined him.

It was an odd situation. Usually if they were sitting together, there was a desk between them. It was if the dean had returned to being his step-father for a moment - or, thought Miyagi briefly, it was as if he wanted to be. “Now, don’t be shy! Why don’t you open it?”

“Right...”

It was, as it seemingly turned out, not exactly a family album, but more of a baby album - which already felt strange in some ways, but relieving in others, because at least there was no chance of _himself_ turning up in here in a wedding photo or something. No, _those_ photos must have been safely elsewhere.

As the eldest, the first few pages were filled with photos of Risako. She had been a cute baby - well, all babies were cute anyway - but what was more surprising was that as a child she had really resembled Shinobu. Or that is to say, Shinobu resembled her. That scowl was iconic.

“...And this was her at her twelfth birthday party,” the dean was saying, as Miyagi tuned in again.

“She doesn’t look too happy about this picture,” he remarked, unable to hide his amusement. Yes, that frown looked _really_ familiar.

“No...sadly, this was around the time she started to hate having her picture taken...Shinobu was the same. It’s such a shame...and people just don’t treasure photographs like they used to...”

“Well, it’s all digital now,” said Miyagi mildly. He wasn’t particularly fond of having his picture taken either. At least his own family album was far, far away, hidden somewhere under a bed in his parents’ house, where nobody was going to see it.

The dean was grumbling, possibly something about his disapproval of the younger generation. He flicked forwards through the pages - there were a lot of blanks, probably where he and his wife had intended to put the pictures that they’d never had the opportunity to take. “As for Shinobu, well, he’s still a child himself...but it feels like just yesterday that he had his first day of school. And now he’s so...” The dean trailed off, but Miyagi got his gist. So...difficult? Moody? Incomprehensible?

The page turned, and...there he was.

Shinobu had been a cute baby, Miyagi admitted to himself - again, that was no surprise. In one photo, an excited-looking Risako cradled the tiny potato sack that was Shinobu in her arms as she beamed up at the camera. She must have been middle-school age then. And she clearly had no idea what an annoyance her little brother would become.

The dean was talking again as Miyagi turned the page over, but he wasn't taking in the words. Shinobu was so small. Shinobu sitting. Shinobu crawling. Shinobu walking. Shinobu with a scruffy mop of hair that always seemed to be growing over his eyes too quickly. In one photo, he squeezes a teddy panda bear in his arms, beaming a rare smile. Miyagi felt his heart twinge in spite of himself. In that picture, he couldn’t have been older than five.

In every photo he was fixated on something around him - his toys, his family, the outdoors - rarely did he seem to look at the camera. And perhaps it was a coincidence, but the older he got, the less he seemed to smile. Yet he always took a good photo. Not entirely surprising - he’d always had such a pretty face, Miyagi imagined that one would be hard pressed not to get his good side.

“...It’s hard to believe he was such a sweet child, isn’t it? Looking at him now...” The dean sighed. Miyagi hummed in assent.

Though he mused inwardly that he'd seen his sweet side plenty of times himself.

As Miyagi inwardly kicked himself for letting his mind drift to things like that now of all times, the dean carried on unawares. “Like Risako, he came to be awkward about having his picture taken...this is the one of the last good ones we could take, aside from that one on the mantlepiece there.” He flicked the page across, and the photo in question stood out immediately.

He must have been an elementary-schooler then. This photo had been professionally taken, it seemed, and for once the boy stared right at the camera, if...reluctantly. Well, reluctant is the impression that Miyagi first got, but on second thoughts really his expression was quite neutral. Perhaps he had just been imagining it, but something about Shinobu’s round grey eyes had seemed sad. Or maybe just...empty.

“You couldn’t force him to smile for anything,” the dean sighed. “Such a shame, for such a handsome-looking boy...”

“Indeed...”

“Of course, he’s just as bad now. I tell you, he won’t get by in life being so cynical. Or at the very least, he’s going to make things very difficult for himself.”

“I’m sure he knows that,” Miyagi ventured. It was getting difficult to just nod along to the deans complaints about his son these days. “He’s a little hot-headed, but he is considerate of people around him.”

“Is he really? But what of us?” sighed the dean, brow furrowed. “Family or not, he certainly doesn’t seem to mind causing us – and _you_ – trouble.”

“No, no, he’s no trouble at all, I promise you,” Miyagi laughed nervously. No doubt it came across as insincere, because his boss looked less than convinced. Still, there was no helping it, really. From a parent’s point of view, for someone like Miyagi, someone who wasn’t even a member of the family, to have to take so much responsibility over their youngest...no matter what he said, it was going to come across as a burden.

“Well, I’m incredibly grateful to you for everything. Rest assured he won’t have to stay with you forever.”

Miyagi flinched.

The dean flicked through the remaining pages, of which the photographs were sparse, but Miyagi wasn’t really taking them in any more. It wasn’t as if he’d been told anything strange; of course nobody was _expecting_ Shinobu to stay with him forever, to suggest such a thing would be ridiculous in itself. And yet he felt disconcerted by those words.

Was it at the point where he was so wrapped up abnormality that normal things were flooring him?

Or, maybe...

...It was more like his relationship with Shinobu was so disconnected and far away from the real world that being brought back to earth was dizzying.

When he was at work, the dean was his boss. Now he was in this house, the dean was, irrefutably, unignorably, Shinobu’s father. Of course, it wasn’t as simple as that, and it wasn’t as if the dean never mentioned Shinobu while at work - of course he did, and often - but this was different. Miyagi didn’t like it. Here, he was guilty.

With a _thump_ the dean brought his hand down on Miyagi’s shoulder, nearly making him jump out of his skin. “Look at me, rambling on! I’ve lost you, haven’t I?”

“Ah! No, not at all, sir! I was just-”

“Oh, don’t worry about it,” the man laughed, though he looked somewhat tired. “I suppose it’s probably time to leave the past behind and make a move to our conference.”

“Yes, sir!” Miyagi had never felt so relieved to attend a meeting in his life.

Though the album was left forgotten on the sitting room table, for the rest of the evening he couldn’t shake the image of Shinobu’s cold blue-grey stare from his mind.

 

He didn't know what the future held for the two of them, but he didn't want Shinobu to have to wear that expression ever again. That, at least, he was certain of.

 


End file.
